Beach Haven | Errantries

Author: Pete

Location: Mercury Islands, New Zealand

We dropped our Beach Haven mooring in the morning and rode the tide out of Auckland amidst the hum of morning ferry traffic and belch of container ships. The seas remained flat even out of the harbor, sheltered from the swell by Waiheke Island. As usual, the wind blew from the exact direction we intended to go, but it was a beautiful day to work on our withered line handling skills so we spent the afternoon tacking upwind. An agreeable fifteen knot breeze blew and Tayrona stretched her hydrodynamic legs and rumpled wings happily. As the crow flies it’s only twenty five miles to Ponui Island, but with all the tacking it felt like fifty. Our tribute seemed to please the wind gods who rewarded us with a still evening, a mirror anchorage, and a blazing sunset.

Weighing anchor early the next morning we sailed twenty five miles to Port Jackson on north end of the Coromandel Peninsula. We ripped along easily on a perfect beam reach and even picked up a good sized kingfish on the way. There’s nothing like being back in blue water after a stint ashore.†

Pulled into Port Jackson’s wide bay and anchored in the lee of the land with a brawny-looking commercial fishing boat. I landed the dinghy on the long beach and ran the path through the rolling hills along the coast. Well, it was intended to be a run; at times it was more like a plod. I used to run like the wind, but now it’s more like broken wind. Fried fish tacos with our “kingy” for dinner was reason enough to not wander too far inland.

Light winds barely stirred the seas the next day and we were forced to motor the twenty five miles to the Mercury Islands. Great Mercury is stunning, with clear water, sandy beaches, and steep silvery cliffs.

We were greeted by dolphins who swam around Tayrona. They must’ve been excited to see us because as soon as we donned jumped off the transom in snorkel gear they started copulating under the boat. It’s got to be tough when your partner is slipperier than a oiled beachball and you have neither hands nor gravity to work with. Apparently they do it in the midst their companions as often a third dolphin will help hold the female in position on the bottom but we didn’t see that happen. No dolphin threesomes for us. 🙁

After our voyeuristic snorkeling session we took a hike up to a promontory on the island that afforded sweeping views of eastern shore’s sheer cliffs. The next day we explored the rocky protrusions that stuck up out of the heather-covered hills. The place conjured up battle scenes from Lord of the Rings and left me wanting for my sword and leather boots. Later we stumbled into an archeological excavation of a Maori village site just over the hill from our anchorage and I wanted for my fedora and bullwhip. That night another gorgeous sunset left us wanting for nothing.

† I love this intro paragraph from Moby Dick. It always comes to mind when I’m going back to sea after some time landlubbering ashore. Makes me wish people still wore top hats so I could methodically knock them off of peoples’ heads!

“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off-then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”

-Herman Melville. “Moby Dick”

Author: Pete

Location: Beach Haven, New Zealand

With the job fair over and great teaching positions in our pockets, we had much to put us in the celebratory spirit. Our wedding anniversary had also sprung up, so it was decided that a fancy dinner adventure was in order. Some local friends told us about a neat restaurant accessible by boat up one of the tributaries inland of Beach Haven. Apparently it once was a seriously seedy tavern but has recently been gentrified. We zoomed up in faithful dinghy and found the place tucked into the trees overlooking the channel. Miranda donned her high heels on the dock and we waltzed up the stairs and gorged ourselves on ribs! Ripped back in the moonless night, navigating by iPad.

With the fun taken care of it was back to work! As always, there were a few tiny projects to do before heading back to sea. For starters, Tayrona’s coach deck got gussied up with new Lagoon stickers. The original ones had suffered fifteen years of sun and were as baked and faded as old hippies at a Woodstock reunion. We peeled them off with the help of a twelve-volt hair drier then smoothed the flashy new logos on either side of the coach deck. Bling!

Continuing the glamor work, we decided to polish up Tayrona’s shoes. After a couple weeks of hanging on a mooring in the muddy tributary her undersides took on the complexion of a clinical acne patient. Sailing with a hull full of barnacles and seaweed is such a drag. Instead of jumping into the the murky current with snorkel gear we took advantage of the significant tides and dried Tayrona out on the beach next to our mooring.

In a year and a half of sailing across the world it’s been our entire focus not to run the boat into things like land. It’s a new day, it’s a new dawn, it’s a new life for me. We woke just before four in the morning to catch the high tide and put ourselves as far up the beach as possible when the tide was full ebb. Not a ripple marred the water as we dropped our mooring lines and with bleary eyes drove the boat smack into the shore. Okay, it was much gentler than that. The previous day I had found the flattest, firmest piece of beach (does that sound inappropriate to you?) upon which to land, and as the wee hours of the morning unfurled we slowly inched Tayrona into the shallows. I asked Miranda to stand up at the bow with a light. I’m not sure why… what’s she going to say? “Beach! Yup, that’s the beach!” I watched the depth gauge drop to 0.7 meters before we came to a barely perceivable stop in the still and silence… “LAND HO!”

Lagoons are theoretically designed to sit balanced on their keels but we’ve never actually seen proof of this. We held our breath for the four hours it took for the tide to cede its buoyant support of her mass to the structural fin keels. Tayrona swayed a bit to find just the right spot and settled a few inches into the sand, but did refrain from rolling over to have her belly scratched. I dug pits under the rudders to make sure they weren’t taking weight, and then we started scraping barnacles!

We also took advantage of the exposed sail drives to replace the zinc anodes. Zincs are sacrificial metal pieces that are designed to corrode in the nauseatingly harsh marine environment so the rest of your boat doesn’t. You do have to replace them as they erode, however. For some reason, these zincs were engineered to sit behind the propellers, so I had to remove both in the replacement process. New zincs and clean props for Tay-Tay!

In our day of bottom-side buffing we were cheered along by local friends Rebecca, Angela, and Tanya, who lived around Beach Haven and were kind enough to share their beach with us!